Caleb's Guardian Angel at Work...

I took this from Caleb... this happened last year... but I love looking back over the past year and seeing how God has worked in our lives...

Please bear with me as I tell this story. This happened a few hours ago and was one of the most amazing events of my life.

As many of you know, I'm on my way to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I left Kalamazoo at noon today and hoped to make it to Sullivan, Missouri, which is on the other side of St. Louis. I was about 6 hours into my drive, and literally in the middle of nowhere in Illinois when all of a sudden, all sorts of lights started coming on inside my car...you know, the lights you don't want to see come on, like the little lit up exclamation point, battery light, and service engine light...all at the same time. I immediately looked for an exit, and of course there was none because I was in the middle of nowhere, so I pulled into the right lane and slowed down. As I did that, my power steering went out and my car's temperature gauge shot into the red. My car was literally falling apart in front of my eyes! I looked to the side of the road where a sign read, "Elkhart, 3 miles." Whatever Elkhart was, I hoped it had a mechanic.

So I nursed my car off the highway and rolled through the city limits of Elkhart ,where the city sign read, "Population 500." I thought, great, there's no way there's a mechanic in this town, but I had no other option. I pulled into downtown Elkhart, which consisted of exactly 4 buildings...a bar, a bank, town hall, and an old run-down looking plane hangar/ shed that looked like it used to MAYBE be an auto mechanic. The only building that looked inhabited was the bank and bar, so I pulled up in front of the bar and walked in. It was like a scene out of a movie. The lone bartender was polishing glasses by hand and the six people in the bar were all seated at the bar. One little kid was playing on the outdated arcade games in the corner. Obviously not seeing outsiders often, I quickly became the center of attention and the bartender quickly asked if he could help me. "Is there a mechanic in town?" I asked. "Kind of," replied the bartender. Kind of? This wasn't looking good...but I didn't have time to care what he meant...but he elaborated for me. "He worked on cars until about 10 years ago. Now he just does tractors." I guess it was as good as I was gonna get...
"Where at?"
"Right across the street there." (Referring to the old hangar/garage)
"Is there anyone there?"
"You never really know, you might just want to wander over there." (while looking out the window)
"Ok. Thanks."
So across the street I went, not even bothering to check the 1.5 lane main street for traffic. I walked into the "garage" where I found three men behind the counter. One was in his mid to late 60s, one his mid 30s, and one about 19 or 20. All of them had warn workboots on and some sort of combination of a carhart jacket, baseball cap, and/or coveralls. I explained to them what had happened, and the older man said, "sounds like a serpentine belt, you wanna go check it out?" (Speaking to the youngest of the 3)

So across the street I went with the youngest of the 3. I popped the hood, and he poked around in there for about 10 seconds until he pointed to my shredded serpentine belt. We went back inside and this time the older man wanted to take a look. He came out, poked around, and found that it wasn't just the belt, but also the pulley wheel that it runs around. Wonderful...He got a worried look on his face and started walking back toward the shed, so I followed. For the next 10 minutes he tried calling everyone that he could think of within 20 miles that might possibly have the parts or be able to work on a Saab. "I'm not sure there's anyone who can work on that car around here, especially not on a Friday night." (Did I mention it was about 5:15?) He said that he didn't think I would be able to find anyone to work on it until Monday. "That's just not gonna work. I've gotta be to Ft. Sill by Sunday at noon," I said. The older man perked up..."You in the Army?"
"Yes sir."
"Hmm...I was in the Army 40 years ago."
"No kidding? It's still the same Army."
"Hahaha, you're probably right about that. Hurry up and wait."
"You got it."

At this point it seemed that he all of a sudden remembered about a couple of calls to make that he had forgotten about before. He called a parts shop in Springfield, about 25 minutes away. He got a surprised look on his face when they told him that they actually had the parts that would fix my car. So we had the parts...kind of (25 minutes away). Now I just needed someone who would (and) could work on it. At this point the young guy spoke up. "I think I might know someone who can work on it." So he tried calling one of his buddies, who he couldn't get ahold of. Then the middle-aged man got in on the conversation. "Well at least I can drive you over to Springfield for a motel room. I can probably even put your car on my trailer and haul it over there so you can get it worked on." The young guy had a better idea. "You know, I just got all those new tools. Maybe we could do it." The middle aged guy said that he would give a hand, and the older guy said that he'd come along to "supervise." Alright, I thought...I'm not sure if these guys are going to be able to do it, but at least they're going to try.

So I hopped in my half disabled car and followed them across town (a 30 second drive) to their tractor repair shed that doubled as the county school bus shed. I pulled it in and the two elder men got to work disassembling my engine while the younger guy and me got on our way to Springfield for the parts. **Edit** I don't know how I forgot to include this when I wrote it initally, but we rode to Springfield in a monster truck...like literally. It was a Ford F-250 with a 2 ft. lift and like 36" Mud tires on it. It had a special exhaust, turbo gauges, DVD pop-up screen (which I didn't know they knew about in Elkhart), and all sorts of other gadgets. Anyway, 50 minutes later and we were back with the parts...$100 worth that the guy somehow mysteriously knew a discount code so it turned out to be $45 total. Literally 15 minutes later they had the serpentine belt and pulley installed and my engine put back together. So within an hour and a half of my car basically falling apart and having no way of getting out of Elkhart, Illinois, my car was completely fixed. Did I mention the fact that none of the three men would accept a single penny for their work? The long and the short of it is that I had probably 500-600 dollars worth of work done on my car in an hour and a half on a Friday night by 3 guys I didn't know, and they sent me on my way without wanting a single cent of compensation. I didn't know what to say, do, or think. It was like I literally ended up in the one place in the middle of nowhere where people valued one another above themselves. I'm not sure if I'll ever end up back in Elkhart, Illinois, but if you're ever in need of something and end up there, be assured that you're in good hands.

All I can say is that my guardian angel was working overtime today and deserves tomorrow off...hopefully he doesn't take it off, though. I'll probably need him.